Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His Books

Fal’sifikatory Istorii (1948) is the closest we get to a Stalin memoir about his pact with Hitler. It was designed to shift the conversation about the war’s origins from the secret protocol to western appeasement of Hitler and to present a hard-headed defence of Soviet territorial expansion in 1939–1940. As a piece of propaganda, it had a glaring defect: it didn’t even mention, let alone address, the issue of the secret protocol. At Nuremberg the Soviets had derided the protocol as a fabrication designed to deflect from the Nazi conspiracy to wage aggressive war. Having adopted that stance, there was no question of backing away from it. Stalin didn’t do retractions.

TARGET THE AUDIENCE: THE TEXTBOOK ON POLITICAL ECONOMY

Socialist economics was the lifeblood of the Soviet system. The success or failure of Soviet socialism rested on its economic performance. Stalin devoted a lot of time to studying and dealing with economics problems. Many of his seminal speeches were devoted wholly or in part to economic questions. In the 1920s and 1930s the Soviets developed from scratch a socialist, planned economy but they didn’t theorise, generalise and codify their experience. As Ethan Pollock puts it, ‘There were no acceptable Soviet textbooks on the socialist economy or the transition to communism.’⁵³

This was a lacuna Stalin determined to fill, and in 1937 the central committee decreed the writing of a textbook on the political economy of both socialism and capitalism. In receipt of drafts from leading economists, Stalin summoned them to a meeting in the Kremlin in January 1941. The proposed textbook was impractical and overly theoretical, he told them. They had misconstrued the purpose of economic planning, which was, first, to ensure the independence of the economy under conditions of capitalist encirclement; second, to destroy the forces that could give rise to capitalism again; and, third, to deal with problems of disequilibrium in the economy. Stalin preferred practical observations of Soviet reality to abstract theories: ‘If you search for an answer in Marx, you’ll get off track. In the USSR you have a laboratory that has existed for more than twenty years. . . . You need to work with your own heads and not string together quotations.’ The draft was too propagandistic and not scientific enough. Required was a textbook that would ‘appeal to the mind’.⁵⁴

Work on the textbook was disrupted by the war and postwar progress was slow, not least because the economists were afraid of political missteps: they preferred to be told by Stalin what they should write. Not until late 1949 did Stalin have a new draft to consider. At a meeting with his economists in April 1950, he said it required serious correction in both tone and substance. He wanted a textbook that was more historical, more geared to less educated people, a book that would be ‘more approachable’, wherein ‘little by little the reader comes to understand the laws of economic development’. This was important because:

Our cadres need to know Marxist theory well. The first, older generation of Bolsheviks was well grounded. We memorised Capital, summarised, argued and tested one another. . . . The second generation was less prepared. People were busy with practical work and construction. They studied Marxism through brochures. The third generation has been raised on pamphlets and newspaper articles. They don’t have a deep understanding of Marxism. They must be given food that is easily digestible.

There were too ‘many babbling, empty and unnecessary words and many historical excursions’, he said. ‘I read 100 pages and crossed out 10 and could have crossed out even more. There shouldn’t be a single extra word in a textbook. The descriptions should be like polished sculpture. . . . The literary side of the textbook is poorly developed.’

At yet another meeting a month or so later, Stalin instructed his economists to ‘imagine the audience for whom you are writing. Don’t imagine beginners. Instead keep in mind people who have finished eighth to tenth grade.’ Further: ‘The textbook is intended for millions of people. It will be read and studied not only here, but all over the world. It will be read by Americans and Chinese, and it will be studied in all countries. You need to keep in mind a more qualified audience.’⁵⁵

Stalin did his usual detailed editing job and in January 1951 the economists presented him with another revised and rewritten draft. The saga continued with the circulation of nearly 250 copies of the draft textbook to economists and key party cadres. At a gathering to discuss this draft, some 110 speeches were made. Stalin pored over the hundreds of pages of the meeting’s transcripts.⁵⁶ Like many of his library books, they are littered with his underlinings, margin lines, crossed-through paragraphs, question marks, NBs (scores of them), yes, no, so, not so, nonsense, stupid, ha ha and numerous other markings.⁵⁷